Veterans of army brothels

During the war in Japan , there were many brothels with forcibly removed from China and Korea by women. Then these women, many of whom ended up in brothels at the age of 15-16 years, or even less, were officially apologized by the government. Today, only a few of those who were forced to sell their bodies in the middle of the XX century are still alive. From this issue you will learn their stories.

1. Chinese woman Hao Yuelyan believes that prostitution during the war was the cause of her infertility. In her room in the house in Taiyuan (Shanxi province of China), where she lives with her adopted daughter, the woman hung up images of babies that she missed so much in life. According to the commission investigating the involvement of Chinese women in prostitution during World War II (CIFCWV), Hao was abducted by Japanese soldiers at the age of 17.

2. Hao Yuelyan does not like war films, especially those where Japanese soldiers appear on the screen. According to her daughter, she is still afraid of them and immediately turns away from the TV.

3. Zhang Xiantu, a resident of Chinese Xi'an (Shanxi Province), is one of 16 former prostitutes who filed a lawsuit against the Japanese government in 1995. And the last survivor.

4. Soldiers abducted her at the age of 15. According to the CIFCWV report, Zhang Xiantu spent more than 20 days in brothels.

5. Japanese soldiers spent three years in this fortress located in the Chinese province of Shanxi during the war. There were also more than 50 abducted women who were forced into prostitution.

6. Lee Ok-sun from South Korea got into Japanese brothels in 1942. She was first raped at one of the airfields in China when she was 15 years old.

7. After the war, Li Ok-sun settled in China because she was ashamed to return to her homeland. The photo that Li Ok-sun holds in her hands, made in 1947, when she had already moved to China.

8. The woman returned to her homeland only in 2001. Now she lives in the city of Gwangju, in a special shelter for women who have been sexually abused by Japanese soldiers.

9. Lee Ok-sun is a Catholic and never leaves the crucifix.

10. Chinese woman Ren Lane was abducted at the age of 15. Her mother bought her, paying with military rice and flour. After the war, Ren Lan married, gave birth to three sons and a daughter.

11. In this suitcase is a shroud that Ren Lane has prepared for herself.

12. South Korean citizen Gil Won-ok in her room at the shelter for former "comfort women" in Seoul. In 1940, at the age of 13, she was sent to one of the Japanese army brothels in China. There she contracted syphilis, and later, due to the development of tumors, a military doctor removed her uterus, making her infertile.

13. Kim Bok-dong poses with a copy of his painting "The Day a 14-year-old Girl was Stolen" in a room at a shelter in Seoul. The woman recalls that on weekdays she was forced to have sex with about 15 men, on weekends their number increased to fifty.

14. Chinese woman Hao Juxiang was abducted by soldiers at the age of 15 or 16. Now she lives in the Chinese city of Gucheng (Shanxi province).

15. One of the activists of the struggle for the rights of women who suffered from Japanese soldiers, Zhang Shuangbing, burns incense and ritual (fake) money at the grave of Liu Mianhuan, who died three years ago. Mianhuan was abducted at the age of 15 and spent more than 40 days in brothels.

16. Zhang Shuangbing at the grave of Liu Mianhuan.

17. Memorial plaque in Seoul in memory of the dead Korean women abducted during the war for brothels.